Temporary Sculptures

I am very end goal driven and this assignment was about the process of exploration and idea generating. I had to focus on exploring the space around me instead of stop focusing on producing a particular product. At the beginning of a project I am already picturing end stages instead of exploring various possibilities along the way. This project helped me open my mind up to different ways of thinking. My partner and I worked on narrative based temporary sculptures, including turning an object into a character and creating a snowman. We created a few nonrepresentational sculptures, but ultimately I think that the narrative ones were more successful.

Play: 100 parts to a sculpture

I found play to be a difficult assignment at first because of how foreign a concept it was to me. The beginning of the project focused on exploring the various ways an item could be used for an artistic process. The exercise was beneficial and definitely helped me break down some of my preconceived notions about how I believed I needed to generate ideas. This concept is something that I look forward to utilizing in my future work for creating fantasy based creatures and concepts. I chose frozen balloons because I wanted to explore the limited time that ice sculptures would last. It helped me be more free with my creative process.

Rules

The Rules project required thinking from an outside perspective. I worked with my partner to try to create rules that would generate a concept that we decided on. We had aimed to have someone create “Tetris” using colored paper cut into various shapes. We were not successful in having someone recreating Tetris, but the result was enjoyable. We followed Cat’s rules to create a work of art based off of words that we spoke into a phone app. I’m not sure if we completed the project as Cat, the rule creator, intended. The final result was interesting from a graphical standpoint.

Notable

For my notable I chose to work with mental health awareness. A lot of the time we say “I’m Fine” or “I’m okay” even when our mental landscape is anything but. We do not always understand that the kind of messages included on the inner part of the signs are more than just thoughts we have on a bad day. If you feel or think any of the hidden messages, then it is a strong indication that you need to talk to someone. The inner messages are all feelings and thoughts I have had about myself at some point. The messages resonate and touch a nerve. I cannot look at my notable without becoming uneasy. I think that my message was successful.

I constructed the body of the person using a ‘cast’ of myself. I wrapped myself in saran wrap and layered clear tape like an exoskeleton. I then cut the tape off, fixed the seam and assembled the project into a sculpture. I used red tape to tie the mental landscape with the red words written behind the “I’m fine” message board. I cut the words “I’m fine” out of black foam board and layered it over a white foam board, where I wrote down my own negative self-talk. I wanted those words hidden, or inside the outward facing letters.

Identity Project

The first part of the assignment, the chronology was hard to create. I struggle with remembering past events due to trauma associated with them. I was able to pull together relevant events that I thought were enjoyable instead of sad. When working with my partner’s chronology to create an artwork based on her interests, I choose a few repeated elements to illustrate. My partner referenced 4H, Science, and sports. I collaged these elements together to create a “portrait” of her interests. If COVID were not a factor, I would have liked to create the illustration using icing on cupcakes to pay homage to my partner’s background in baking.

Narrative

I have overheard some very strange conversations at Walmart, so I choose to visit this location to record snippets for my Narrative assignment. I also captured some pictures from the store in addition to a few pictures from my home. I worked these conversation snippets together with 3 of the pictures that I took to create a sense of a story. I tried to invoke a feeling of inspirational posters with the way I designed and incorporated the text into the artwork. The titles of the work helped inform the viewer of the narrative created by the text and image.

Memory

Exploring my memories is an endeavor that I do not like to undertake. My past is complicated and holds a fair amount of trauma, especially from my childhood. As I reflected about my memories and completed quick idea sketches, I found myself dwelling on fish. I can mark the milestones of my childhood with the fish that lived in my fish tank, of which there was a great variety. The fish memories sit at the surface, and darker memories live in the depths below. I chose not to explore those dark memories and instead build a fish tank

The tank was created with a series of painted fish and decorations on each pane of glass that was then spaced about ½ inch apart to give a sense of depth. The painting had to be created from drawing the closest details first, then moving to the back as the glass panes were flipped over to reveal a smooth painting on the other side. To finish the project, I created an aquarium hood and placed a battery operated light inside to illuminate the glass like an actual fish tank.

Everything is a Remix

For my remix project, I decided to remix the technique I used to create my notable project. I created an “Ephemeral Dragon” made from tape, cardboard, pool noodles, and dowel rods. I took what I learned from my notable and applied it to creating a larger dragon. The part that displeased me most about my notable was the sagging that happened overtime. To avoid this in my dragon, I incorporated pool noodles, dowel rods and some wire. I attached these support structures to the “mountain” that the dragon was perched on. I also reused parts of my notable project to create the dragon. Most noticeable is the legs reused on the dragon.

Artist Research Presentation